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miércoles, 7 de enero de 2015

NASA : NASA’s Kepler Marks 1,000th Exoplanet Discovery, Uncovers More Small Worlds in Habitable Zones.- EL TELESCOPIO ESPACIAL KEPLER, MARCA SU MIL DESCUBRIMIENTO DE EXO PLANETAS EN LA ZONA DE HABITABILIDAD GALÁCTICA...

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., acabamos de recibir información muy caliente de la Agencia Espacial NASA, haciéndonos conocer que el : NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, ya llegó a mil los descubrimientos de exo planetas ubicados en la Zona de Habitabilidad Galáctica, es decir donde haya la posibilidad de encontrar un planeta análogo a La Tierra y que tenga alguna forma de vida.

NASA, nos dice ..:

"Salón de la Fama Kepler de la NASA: De los más de 1.000 planetas verificados encontrados por el telescopio espacial Kepler de la NASA, ocho tienen menos del doble de tamaño de la Tierra y en la zona habitable de sus estrellas. Los ocho orbitan estrellas más frías y pequeñas que nuestro sol. Continúa la búsqueda de mundos habitables zona tamaño de la Tierra alrededor de estrellas similares al Sol.....

NASA , agrega....."¿Cuántas estrellas como nuestro sol albergan planetas como la Tierra? El telescopio espacial Kepler de la NASA de un seguimiento continuo de más de 150.000 estrellas más allá de nuestro sistema solar, y hasta la fecha ha ofrecido los científicos un surtido de más de 4.000 planetas candidatos para un estudio más - el número 1.000 de los cuales fueron verificados recientemente....."

NASA, prosigue: "Utilizando los datos de Kepler, los científicos llegaron a este hito milenario Después de validar que los ocho candidatos más manchados por el telescopio buscador de planetas son, de hecho, los planetas. El equipo de Kepler también ha añadido otros 554 candidatos al rollo de potenciales planetas, seis de los cuales son tamaño de la Tierra cerca de la órbita y en la zona habitable de estrellas similares a nuestro sol......."

NASA, incide en sus dos últimos descubrimientos: "Dos de los planetas recién validados, Kepler-438b y Kepler-442b, están a menos de 1,5 veces el diámetro de la Tierra. Kepler-438b, 475 años-luz de distancia, es un 12 por ciento más grande que la Tierra y orbita a su estrella una vez cada 35,2 días. Kepler-442b, 1.100 años luz de distancia, es un 33 por ciento más grande que la Tierra y orbita a su estrella una vez cada 112 días......"

NASA Kepler's Hall of Fame: Of the more than 1,000 verified planets found by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, eight are less than twice Earth-size and in their stars' habitable zone. All eight orbit stars cooler and smaller than our sun. The search continues for Earth-size habitable zone worlds around sun-like stars.

How many stars like our sun host planets like our Earth? NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope continuously monitored more than 150,000 stars beyond our solar system, and to date has offered scientists an assortment of more than 4,000 candidate planets for further study -- the 1,000th of which was recently verified.

Using Kepler data, scientists reached this millenary milestone after validating that eight more candidates spotted by the planet-hunting telescope are, in fact, planets. The Kepler team also has added another 554 candidates to the roll of potential planets, six of which are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of stars similar to our sun.

Three of the newly-validated planets are located in their distant suns’ habitable zone, the range of distances from the host star where liquid water might exist on the surface of an orbiting planet. Of the three, two are likely made of rock, like Earth.

"Each result from the planet-hunting Kepler mission's treasure trove of data takes us another step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “The Kepler team and its science community continue to produce impressive results with the data from this venerable explorer."

To determine whether a planet is made of rock, water or gas, scientists must know its size and mass. When its mass can’t be directly determined, scientists can infer what the planet is made of based on its size.

Two of the newly validated planets, Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b, are less than 1.5 times the diameter of Earth. Kepler-438b, 475 light-years away, is 12 percent bigger than Earth and orbits its star once every 35.2 days. Kepler-442b, 1,100 light-years away, is 33 percent bigger than Earth and orbits its star once every 112 days.

Both Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b orbit stars smaller and cooler than our sun, making the habitable zone closer to their parent star, in the direction of the constellation Lyra. The research paper reporting this finding has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

"With each new discovery of these small, possibly rocky worlds, our confidence strengthens in the determination of the true frequency of planets like Earth," said co-author Doug Caldwell, SETI Institute Kepler scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. "The day is on the horizon when we’ll know how common temperate, rocky planets like Earth are.”

With the detection of 554 more planet candidates from Kepler observations conducted May 2009 to April 2013, the Kepler team has raised the candidate count to 4,175. Eight of these new candidates are between one to two times the size of Earth, and orbit in their sun's habitable zone. Of these eight, six orbit stars that are similar to our sun in size and temperature. All candidates require follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets.

“Kepler collected data for four years -- long enough that we can now tease out the Earth-size candidates in one Earth-year orbits”, said Fergal Mullally, SETI Institute Kepler scientist at Ames who led the analysis of a new candidate catalog. “We’re closer than we’ve ever been to finding Earth twins around other sun-like stars. These are the planets we’re looking for”.

These findings also have been submitted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement.

Work is underway to translate these recent discoveries into estimates of how often rocky planets appear in the habitable zones of stars like our sun, a key step toward NASA's goal of understanding our place in the universe.

Scientists also are working on the next catalog release of Kepler’s four-year data set. The analysis will include the final month of data collected by the mission and also will be conducted using sophisticated software that is more sensitive to the tiny telltale signatures of small Earth-size planets than software used in the past.

Ames is responsible for Kepler's mission operations, ground system development and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado, developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and was funded by the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the Kepler mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

viernes, 26 de septiembre de 2014

NASA : NASA Telescopes Find Clear Skies and Water Vapor on Exoplanet

Hola Amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG-. LA agencia espacial NASA, nos informa del descubrimiento de un exoplaneta llamado: HAT-P-11b, del tamaño de Neptuno, que tiene nubes con vapor de agua, y incluso tiene rocas, el trabajo de descubrimiento ha sido posible utilizando los Telescopios Espaciales: Kepker, Hubble y Spitzer. El exo planeta se encuentra a 120 años luz de distancia en la constelación de Cisne(Cygnus).

Los resultados de los tres telescopios demuestran que HAT-P-11b está cubierto de vapor de agua, gas hidrógeno y probablemente otras moléculas todavía a ser identificados.

Amigos les invito a leer la información en detalle abajo adjunta.

A Neptune-size planet with a clear atmosphere is shown crossing in front of its star in this artist's depiction. Such crossings, or transits, are observed by telescopes like NASA's Hubble and Spitzer to glean information about planets' atmospheres.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Feature Link:

Full image and caption

Scientists were excited to discover clear skies on a relatively small planet, about the size of Neptune, using the combined power of NASA's Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Feature Link:

Full image and caption

A plot of the transmission spectrum for exoplanet HAT-P-11b, with data from NASA's Kepler, Hubble and Spitzer observatories combined. The results show a robust detection of water absorption in the Hubble data. Transmission spectra of selected atmospheric models are plotted for comparison.

Image Credit:

NASA/ESA/STScI

Astronomers using data from three of NASA's space telescopes -- Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler -- have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapor on a gaseous planet outside our solar system. The planet is about the size of Neptune, making it the smallest planet from which molecules of any kind have been detected.

“This discovery is a significant milepost on the road to eventually analyzing the atmospheric composition of smaller, rocky planets more like Earth,” said John Grunsfeld, assistant administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Such achievements are only possible today with the combined capabilities of these unique and powerful observatories.”

Clouds in a planet’s atmosphere can block the view to underlying molecules that reveal information about the planet’s composition and history. Finding clear skies on a Neptune-size planet is a good sign that smaller planets might have similarly good visibility.

"When astronomers go observing at night with telescopes, they say 'clear skies' to mean good luck," said Jonathan Fraine of the University of Maryland, College Park, lead author of a new study appearing in Nature. "In this case, we found clear skies on a distant planet. That's lucky for us because it means clouds didn't block our view of water molecules."

The planet, HAT-P-11b, is categorized as an exo-Neptune -- a Neptune-sized planet that orbits the star HAT-P-11. It is located 120 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This planet orbits closer to its star than does our Neptune, making one lap roughly every five days. It is a warm world thought to have a rocky core and gaseous atmosphere. Not much else was known about the composition of the planet, or other exo-Neptunes like it, until now.

Part of the challenge in analyzing the atmospheres of planets like this is their size. Larger Jupiter-like planets are easier to see because of their impressive girth and relatively inflated atmospheres. In fact, researchers already have detected water vapor in the atmospheres of those planets. The handful of smaller planets observed previously had proved more difficult to probe partially because they all appeared to be cloudy.

In the new study, astronomers set out to look at the atmosphere of HAT-P-11b, not knowing if its weather would call for clouds. They used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, and a technique called transmission spectroscopy, in which a planet is observed as it crosses in front of its parent star. Starlight filters through the rim of the planet's atmosphere; if molecules like water vapor are present, they absorb some of the starlight, leaving distinct signatures in the light that reaches our telescopes.

Using this strategy, Hubble was able to detect water vapor in HAT-P-11b. But before the team could celebrate clear skies on the exo-Neptune, they had to show that starspots -- cooler "freckles" on the face of stars -- were not the real sources of water vapor. Cool starspots on the parent star can contain water vapor that might erroneously appear to be from the planet.

The team turned to Kepler and Spitzer. Kepler had been observing one patch of sky for years, and HAT-P-11b happens to lie in the field. Those visible-light data were combined with targeted Spitzer observations taken at infrared wavelengths. By comparing these observations, the astronomers figured out that the starspots were too hot to have any steam. It was at that point the team could celebrate detecting water vapor on a world unlike any in our solar system. This discovery indicates the planet did not have clouds blocking the view, a hopeful sign that more cloudless planets can be located and analyzed in the future.

"We think that exo-Neptunes may have diverse compositions, which reflect their formation histories," said study co-author Heather Knutson of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Now with data like these, we can begin to piece together a narrative for the origin of these distant worlds."

The results from all three telescopes demonstrate that HAT-P-11b is blanketed in water vapor, hydrogen gas and likely other yet-to-be-identified molecules. Theorists will be drawing up new models to explain the planet's makeup and origins.

"We are working our way down the line, from hot Jupiters to exo-Neptunes," said Drake Deming, a co-author of the study also from University of Maryland. "We want to expand our knowledge to a diverse range of exoplanets."

The astronomers plan to examine more exo-Neptunes in the future, and hope to apply the same method to super-Earths -- massive, rocky cousins to our home world with up to 10 times the mass. Although our solar system doesn't have a super-Earth, NASA's Kepler mission is finding them in droves around other stars. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018, will search super-Earths for signs of water vapor and other molecules; however, finding signs of oceans and potentially habitable worlds is likely a ways off.

"The work we are doing now is important for future studies of super-Earths and even smaller planets, because we want to be able to pick out in advance the planets with clear atmospheres that will let us detect molecules," said Knutson.

Once again, astronomers will be crossing their fingers for clear skies.

More information about Hubble, Kepler and Spitzer is online at:

http://www.nasa.gov

Mission Manager Update: C1 data on the ground; C2 underway

The K2 mission has successfully completed its first official set of science observations and the data are on the ground! Campaign 2 observations are now underway.
The team is processing and preparing the data from Campaign 1, which are scheduled to be delivered to the public at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) in November. Campaign 1 targets included more than 12,000 stars for exoplanet transit searches, as well as young and old star clusters and galaxies. The latter are being examined for black hole accretion activity or supernovae.

The image is a mosaic of "postage stamp" regions taken during the engineering test run this spring by NASA's Kepler spacecraft operating in the two-wheel K2 mode. Highlighted in the image are two open clusters Messier 35 (top) and NGC 2158 (bottom).

Image Credit:

NASA Ames/T Barclay/W Stenzel

Feature Link:

Click for more detail about the postage stamp

This past spring the team performed an end-to-end shakedown of spacecraft operations and performance in the new two-wheel K2 mode. While this was primarily an engineering test, science observations were made on approximately 8,000 targets, including the open star cluster Messier 35 and the compact open star cluster NGC 2158, both in the constellation Gemini. Coined "Campaign 0," these data were delivered to the public archive at MAST on Monday, Sept. 8.
The team is now accepting target proposals for Campaigns 4 and 5. The deadline for K2 Cycle-1 Stage-2 Guest Observer proposals is 23:59 p.m. EDT on Sept. 23. For the full schedule of operational milestones see the K2 Mission Timeline.
On Aug. 23, the K2 mission began its second campaign. The Campaign 2 field of view includes the globular star clusters M4 and M80 in the constellation of Scorpius, the very dense star-forming region Rho Ophiuchi, along with 17,000 target stars that can be searched for exoplanets. In mid-October, Comet Siding Spring will be observed for approximately 77 hours as it passes through Kepler's field of view. Many other NASA missions also will be pointed toward the comet. Mars also passes through the field of view, but is too bright to be observed. The campaign is scheduled to conclude on Nov. 11, and will be our first K2 campaign to go from start to finish without a break in the middle.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft continues to deliver robust performance in its two-wheel K2 mode. In early August, a reassessment of the fuel usage increased the expected life of the spacecraft by 25 percent. At the current burn rate, the onboard fuel reserves are now expected to last until late 2017, and perhaps beyond. And last week the spacecraft weathered the effects of a large solar flare without missing a beat!
To learn more about the K2 mission visit the Kepler Science Center website.
Despite ongoing K2 operations, the bulk of the mission science focus remains on finalizing the data processing and products for the formal Kepler mission. Two more releases of the data processing pipeline are scheduled that will include enhancements to increase the sensitivity to small planets in long-period orbits, similar to Earth, and determine their frequency in the galaxy-- Kepler's primary objective.
The following are highlights of recent research using Kepler data that have been accepted by a peer-review journal:

Most Sub-Arcsecond Companions of Kepler Exoplanet Candidate Host Stars are Gravitationally Bound (Horch et al., 2014) – This paper finds that about half of the stars hosting planets are actually binary stars. That is, a pair of stars where the planet orbits one of the stars while the other is a bright nighttime spectacle.
The Variable Sky of Deep Synoptic Surveys (Ridgway et al., 2014) - Using Kepler light curves to understand how stars and galaxies vary, this paper extends these results to the entire sky to estimate the science yield that will come from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the Gaia space mission, both to undertake all-sky surveys within the next decade.
On the Frequency of Potential Venus Analogs from Kepler Data (Kane et al., 2014) – The sensitivity of Kepler data to Earth-sized planets allows us to investigate the frequency of Venus analogs since these planets are similar in size; however, Venus has a runaway greenhouse atmosphere. By using climate models to calculate the distances from a star where a runaway greenhouse would occur, this paper defines a "Venus Zone" for potential Venus analogs and estimates that almost half of sun-like stars harbor an analog to our sister planet.

For the latest Kepler exoplanet and candidate statistics, visit the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The Kepler light curves are available at MAST.

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

domingo, 21 de septiembre de 2014

NASA : NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Finds Planet That Makes Star Act Deceptively Old

A new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that a giant exoplanet, WASP-18b, is making the star that it orbits very closely act much older than it actually is. This artist’s illustration depicts WASP-18b and its star, which are about 330 light years away

Image Credit:

NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

A planet may be causing the star it orbits to act much older than it actually is, according to new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This discovery shows how a massive planet can affect the behavior of its parent star.

The star, WASP-18, and its planet, WASP-18b, are located about 330 light-years from Earth. WASP-18b has a mass about 10 times that of Jupiter and completes one orbit around its star in less than 23 hours, placing WASP-18b in the “hot Jupiter” category of exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system.

WASP-18b is the first known example of an orbiting planet that has apparently caused its star, which is roughly the mass of our sun, to display traits of an older star.

“WASP-18b is an extreme exoplanet," said Ignazio Pillitteri of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo in Italy, who led the study. "It is one of the most massive hot Jupiters known and one of the closest to its host star, and these characteristics lead to unexpected behavior. This planet is causing its host star to act old before its time.”

Pillitteri’s team determined WASP-18 is between 500 million and 2 billion years old, based on theoretical models and other data. While this may sound old, it is considered young by astronomical standards. By comparison, our sun is about 5 billion years old and thought to be about halfway through its lifetime.

Younger stars tend to be more active, exhibiting stronger magnetic fields, larger flares, and more intense X-ray emission than their older counterparts. Magnetic activity, flaring, and X-ray emission are linked to the star’s rotation, which generally declines with age. However, when astronomers took a long look with Chandra at WASP-18 they didn’t detect any X-rays. Using established relations between the magnetic activity and X-ray emission of stars, as well as its actual age, researchers determined WASP-18 is about 100 times less active than it should be.

“We think the planet is aging the star by wreaking havoc on its innards,” said co-author Scott Wolk of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The researchers argue that tidal forces created by the gravitational pull of the massive planet – similar to those the moon has on Earth’s tides, but on a much larger scale – may have disrupted the magnetic field of the star.

The strength of the magnetic field depends on the amount of convection in the star, or how intensely hot gas stirs the interior of the star.

“The planet’s gravity may cause motions of gas in the interior of the star that weaken the convection,” said co-author Salvatore Sciortino also of INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo in Italy. “This has a domino effect that results in the magnetic field becoming weaker and the star to age prematurely.”

WASP-18 is particularly susceptible to this effect because its convection zone is narrower than most stars. This makes it more vulnerable to the impact of tidal forces that tug at it.

The effect of tidal forces from the planet may also explain an unusually high amount of lithium found in earlier optical studies of WASP-18. Lithium is usually abundant in younger stars, but over time convection carries lithium to the hot inner regions of a star, where it is destroyed by nuclear reactions. If there is less convection, the lithium does not circulate into the interior of the star as much, allowing more lithium to survive.

These results were published in the July issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics and are available online.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

An interactive image, podcast, and video on these findings are available at:

http://chandra.si.edu

For a preprint of the study results in The Astrophysical Journal, visit:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2620

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui